Mark Hohmeister: Tallahassee has a great sales pitch

OK, so maybe not everything went perfectly during a week of trying to sell my brother from the frozen North on the joys of Tallahassee.

But what fun I had taking a week off from work not to jet to some exotic destination but simply to enjoy many of the things this area has to offer. Touring our little corner of Florida with a visitor helps you notice things you might take for granted.

So, what did we see?

We started the week with a tour of the Florida State campus, genuflecting before the giant stained-glass window of Bobby Bowden before watching what may be the best college baseball team in the country. Nothing shouts “Florida” like short-sleeved shirts and green outfield grass in March.

We took the beautiful drive along the coast to Apalachicola, ate fresh seafood on the riverfront, and then headed to St. George Island State Park, where we picked up a little sunburn and ate still more seafood before driving home — this time, taking the road through Sopchoppy.

My brother couldn’t get over the churches. The white wooden steeple on the Congregational church is part of every New England postcard, but down here you can’t drive a block without passing a small Pentecostal Holiness or Primitive Baptist church. “There’s another one!” my brother would exclaim, like a birdwatcher suddenly surrounded by rare warblers.

We took a long hike at Leon Sinks, where the path develops like a well-written novel. You start out seeing a few small depressions in the ground, marvel at Hammock Sink, get a good laugh out of the aptly named Tiny Sink and then gasp as you near the rim of Big Dismal, which looks like a portal to the underworld.

We took an even longer hike around Lake Overstreet. When we arrived at the lake itself and stood under the huge, moss-draped live oak guarding the shoreline, my sister-in-law asked, “Does anything say ‘The South’ better than this?” I know the dirt road around the lake as a great running route, but my brother, a mountain-biker, couldn’t take his eyes off the many smaller trails that cross the main path.

It wasn’t all about nature. We drove out to Bradley’s Country Store, where my brother stocked up on fresh sausage, smoked sausage and dry, salty and delicious ham. I wanted them to enjoy a Coke on the front porch, but a good old Florida downpour discouraged that.

Food was a centerpiece of the visit. We had fresh seafood for dinner at home, and went out for grouper on a bed of collards and grits. We enjoyed Mexican and barbecue, a trendy downtown spot and takeout from Dave’s Pizza Garage. (Siri on my iPhone kept insisting, “I couldn’t find any pizza restaurants near Tallahassee that have a parking garage.”)

We walked to the Capitol one morning. The second floor was packed with people celebrating Developmental Disabilities Awareness Day, while another held a rally for immigration reform. We watched briefly as bored senators heard a colleague explain how $1 million spent on this will have to be balanced by $1 million taken from that and …

While there, we ran into marketing guy Rick Oppenheim, who leaked to my brother the news that another couple from New Hampshire had just won a national contest promoting Tallahassee as a retirement destination. He then advised us to try lunch at Avenue Eat & Drink downtown.

An hour later, he came up to us inside Avenue and said, “I see you not only took my advice, you took my favorite table.”

Tallahassee’s small-town feel was another selling point, from the gallery operator who recognized my voice on the phone to a chat with a cashier about the Leon High band to a short, personal tour from DeVoe Moore, who took time to explain how he had obtained some of the incredible cars at his museum.

So, what’s not to like?

Well, we’re still looking for northerners who share our love of boiled peanuts.

The pollen we saw falling like snow had my brother apologizing for emptying every Kleenex box in the house. He thinks he’d get used to it — yeah, right.

Then there is politics. I know there are Floridians who are proud of our Stand Your Ground law and the pending warning-shot law and the Pop-Tart law, but to much of the rest of the country, well, we’re just plain nuts. When you’re counting on visitors and retirees to boost your economy, you want their first mental images to be of beaches and oranges — not Dirty Harry growling, “Go ahead, make my day.”

But Florida went for Obama, I told our visitors. Really. Twice!

Regardless, most days this is indeed paradise. A paradise made for sharing.